The Cicero Principle

The essence of Client-based persuasion can be summarized in the words of the Roman orator and statesman Cicero: "if you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words." This is great advice, so excellent that it is the basis for this entire blog posts. When we break it down, phrase by phrase, we can see just how profound it is. IF YOU WISH TO PERSUADE ME.............
Why do you wish to persuade anybody of anything? Basically, you're hoping to influence their behavior,thinking, or attitude. If the context of the persuasion is sales like the best Auction sales, here you're trying to motivate the audience to purchase your product or service.

Our pre-proposal activities lay the foundation for choice

To test the principle, I have often shared a "lunch menu"at the outset of seminars. The so-called menu gives ATTENDEES two options: a turkey club sandwich or baked gravlox with crem'ora sauce. As you might expect, over 90% of participants will choose the turkey club sandwich. A few adventurous souls choose the gravlox,and a few will complain that there's no vegetarian option. But people for the most part are not willing to eat something for lunch that they have never heard of. So what does this mean for our proposal efforts? First, it suggests how important pre-proposal activities are. If the evaluator has never heard of us and our proposal comes on his or her office DESK, chances are we won't get much more than a cursory glance. (Converely, if you work for a fortune 500 company, you may get passed along to the next stage of evaluation based on recognition alone.)